A Drug-Buying Robot Has Been Freed From Police Custody

A robot programmed to buy drugs from illegal online markets has been freed by Swiss police. The shopping bot, called the “Random Darknet Shopper,” was created last fall by a Swiss art group called !Mediengruppe Bitnik to purchase illicit goods online using a weekly allowance of $100 worth of Bitcoin. The various items the bot bought at random, including counterfeit sneakers and ecstasy, would be delivered to the art group’s gallery for an exhibition.

Swiss police captured the robot back in January and confiscated its purchases. However, last week, the art group announced that the police had returned Random Darknet Shopper as well as all of the goods it bought, except for the ecstasy. A Swiss police official told CNBC that the makers of the robot wouldn’t be charged for programming the robot to buy illegal items.

“This is a great day for the bot, for us and for freedom of art!” the art group wrote in a blog post.

Humanoid robots are seen at the Institute for Computer Science at the University of Bonn in Bonn July 3, 2014.

Ina Fassbender—Reuters

Research associates Larry Vadakedathu and Qin He work with one of their RoboCup entries, a 5-foot-tall metal humanoid named THOR (Tactical Hazardous Operations Robot), in the adult-size league at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on July 7, 2014.